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Pen and Paper

Discussion in 'Gaming and PC Discussion' started by Coyote, Apr 27, 2012.

  1. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    Just got the One Ring Bundle of Holding and now desperately want to play it. Maybe I'll GM one after the 5e campaign I'm so hyped for.
     
  2. Typhon

    Typhon Order Member

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    Glad other people are inordinately psyched about this 5e campaign (if the one we talked about on DLP is what you're referencing here). I might have made like 3 character concepts so far. Really hyped to get back into things.

    Edit: that LotR bundle does look pretty sweet, I gotta say.
     
    Last edited: Oct 11, 2015
  3. Hawkin

    Hawkin Chief Warlock

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    We're playing a 5E after our Game of Thrones campaign finishes (which should be soon) - I think that's the one he's talking about.

    Glad to see you're looking forward for this game. I've been working on it a lot as well, so I'm really hyped about it.

    On another note, we ended up "playing" Microscope yesterday. Recommend to anyone who is building a sandbox kind of game and want to make their players more invested in the creation process. We had amazing ideas and the part where you roleplay some scenes of history was pretty neat as well!
     
  4. Typhon

    Typhon Order Member

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    Ahh. Well then. I'll just pretend I didn't say I had 3 concepts fleshed out for a game that is roughly 3 months from starting. :eek:

    Seriously though, it's been fun. Glad to hear you're excited about it as well. All of this prep and getting back into things makes me want to look for a game in the short term, although I doubt I'll find anything.
     
  5. Hawkin

    Hawkin Chief Warlock

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    Don't worry, you're not the only one who's already thinking about their character concept.
     
  6. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    So, we've just concluded a year long campaign. We're going to be playing a couple of one-shots in the interim between this game and the next and we may be interested in adding a player to the group. The scheduling is a little bit weird. For the next week (and possibly another) we'll be playing at 8pm GMT on Saturdays and then for the foreseeable future at 4am GMT on Saturdays.

    If you're interested, hit me up.
     
  7. Thaumologist

    Thaumologist Fifth Year ~ Prestige ~

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    Link to image because it's fuckhuge.

    So I was wondering how you'd, mechanically, run this game?

    I've used a few systems (Storyteller/Exalted; D100/WHFRP, Fate/DFRPG, D20/DnD), and found that generally my players prefer the Story Teller system (D10, 7up is a success, 10s explode) because it lets them throw lots of dice, and all the dice are the same, so they can just steal from neighbours if they need to throw more than they own. Also, it's pretty reliable on what the outcomes are (assume 0.5 successes per die, always) as opposed to some of the others.

    And to anyone familiar with Exalted, I'd thought on combining Specialities with some other (basic) rpg I found elsewhere.

    Essentially, you get four "dots" to put into overall themes. Acting in tune with those themes gives bonus dice, acting against them costs dice.

    So imagine John has a dicepool of 6 for attacking someone. He rolls those six dice whenever he wants to attack.
    But if one of the voices is "Jack the Ripper -stabby4", then instead he gets ten dice.
    However, whenever he goes against Jack's stabbiness (perhaps using first aid?) he suffers a penalty of those four dice.
    You'd probably want a limit - perhaps only two voices in John's head at once, because otherwise you could easily end up with no changes to dice pools

    You'd have to keep the players from talking too much between themselves about what characters they choose, because otherwise you'd end up with trouble.

    But any thoughts?
     
  8. Aekiel

    Aekiel Angle of Mispeling ~ Prestige ~ DLP Supporter

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    The system you're looking for is Everyone Is John. It works really well for what it sets out to do and is easy enough to pick up that you can learn/play in half an hour.
     
  9. Thaumologist

    Thaumologist Fifth Year ~ Prestige ~

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    Wait...

    You mean there's an actual system for it? I'd thought that was just because the MC was called John

    EDIT
    Huh, and the rules are pretty damn simple too. Definitely using this next session.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2015
  10. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    It's an amazing game. There's a pretty awesome Actual Play here but they've slightly modified the rules.

    Also interesting is All Outa Bubblegum, written by the same designer. Oneshot did a cool play through.
     
    Last edited: Oct 18, 2015
  11. Nauro

    Nauro Headmaster

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    http://1d4chan.org/wiki/Everyone_Is_John


    Interesting.

    I've ran a couple similar games and this is the first time I hear about it.

    First was a forum game where several people played a single humanoid demon, with all the posts counting for an actions taken unless any player vetoed the action, meaning at some cases people were jumping over each other to push their agenda, and not others. There was no additional taking-over mechanic, except that each player had a special power only they could use, meaning if someone wanted to use a power, or use a string of powers, they had to collaborate.


    Second was a weird vtm game where five players were in a head of an Abomination (What happens when you Embrace a werewolf in VtM. 98% of such attempts die. I had ruled that instead of instant death there were seven days such an Abomination would live) As per plot, it was a failed experiment of a Tzimisce and a Malkavian-antitribu, who both got eaten for their trouble. I was hoping that players would figure out what happened, made some difference after their deaths, but it didn't happen. At least they got their revenge.

    This time, I made both an overpowered character sheet for the abomination, counting each and every player's skill, ability and discipline, AND
    five more character sheets that were more streamline, to give to each of the players.

    Whenever anyone would declare an action, they would roll according to their own character sheet, until they quickly figured out that some were better at certain things than others.

    For disputes, I had prepared two mechanics. First, as this was VtM, and they were low generation, I had tokens for blood points, divided equally among the players, as well as giving each of them two tokens of willpower.
    On dispute, they could burn willpower to force things to happen their way, or haggle with control over blood, by terms of trade.



    A third game I remember was on AI-s on the single ship, where I used sanity tokens for burnable things to make your decision stick, and processing power that could be used to haggle and activate ship's systems.


    There must have been at least one other instance, but I probably used some variation of before-mentioned mechanic - one type of burnable tokens to force it your way, unless someone burns double to counter. And another type of tokens that have another use to be traded for haggling purposes.
     
  12. not here right now

    not here right now Squib

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    So, last weekend I finished up the 3rd session of my epic in scope Pathfinder campaign, one of my players has already got his third character genned up ready for the fourth session and whilst this would normally worry me, the two character changes have been for good reason and both myself and the player are super happy with the character concept.
    I'm just happy that they're out of my little introductory dungeon and can start getting into the meat of the world I've built for them.
     
  13. 9th Doctor

    9th Doctor Groundskeeper

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    Just ran a small group with D&D's Heroes of Hesiod. Its based for children, but the group I was working with has been skeptical of RPGs, so showing them a simple campaign was the goal. It went better than I expected- one guy was really into it, his wife liked the game (wizard throwing fire) and my wife the rogue killed 3 out of 4 monsters and dodged point blank dragon fire.

    I think it would have been even better with more experience on my part and an earlier night. All told I'm going to pick up the D&D Starter set. It's $12 on Amazon now, and if I can swing it again I may have a small group started.

    On the DM side- anything I can read to make my life easier? And do the players always treat it as them against the DM?
     
  14. Mordecai

    Mordecai Drunken Scotsman –§ Prestigious §– DLP Supporter

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    It really depends on the sort of game you're running whether the players treat it as them against you. If you're doing a dungeon crawl with no real story, where all you're doing is throwing monsters at them, then yes, they'll always treat it as them against you. But if you run an actual plot, where they have to plan and think and talk etc, then it becomes a lot more co-operative.
     
  15. Hawkin

    Hawkin Chief Warlock

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    You can easily find the pdf of player's handbook/dungeon master/mondter manual online. Otherwise I suggest these:

    /r/behindthescreen (or something like that)

    Angry GM has a few interesting articles. I love his series about building encounters.
    How to build dungeons
     
  16. GiantMonkeyMan

    GiantMonkeyMan High Inquisitor

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    Had my first ever pen and paper experience the other day although I've watched some stuff on the interwebs and am generally a nerd so I wasn't completely ignorant of what was going on.

    We played one of the introductory campaigns for Call of Cthulu in the 1920's setting. My character was a career criminal who pleaded insanity to get out of jail but was forced by the judge to attend to a psychology professor who could monitor me. In the process of trying to find out why some npcs had gone crazy but ended up finding a hidden room within which rested a zombie that ended up killing us both due to some terrible rolls with a metal pipe. Had a blast though and a small part of me is glad my character died because his stats were terrible!
     
  17. enembee

    enembee The Nicromancer DLP Supporter

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    Last Sunday, Aek, Cteatus, myself and some others had the pleasure of being in the inaugural session of Basilisk's exploration based campaign of 5e.

    Here's my write-up for the session:

     
    Last edited: Jan 16, 2016
  18. Hawkin

    Hawkin Chief Warlock

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    In the same vein, I decided to commissioned a drawing of our characters from our last session (A Song of Ice and Fire) and offer it as a gift to Enembee.

    [​IMG]

    I want to take the time to thank him for the wonderful times we've had in this campaign and let everyone know that he's an amazing GM (the best one I've ever had personally), so if he offers you a spot for a game, you'd be a fool to decline.

    Cheers enembee!
     
  19. tomio

    tomio Squib

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    Allow me to tell the story of W'Lad'Imyr, colloquially known as Vladimir. Vladimir was a Drow, and a damn fine one at that.

    Contrary to most Drow, Vladimir decided he didn't want to live in the damp underground caverns or get fed to spiders, and decided to escape. One day, while fulfilling his tasks as Qu'el'saruk (which is the male Weaponmaster) to his own, albeit minor house, he decided "fuck this" and started planning his escape.

    Now, Vladimir's most priced possession was a book describing the life of a Dwarven swordmaster (or at least, that's what the book said, who knows how good the guy actually was). He'd actually been taught the language under orders from one of the daughters of the matrons, because she found it "kinky" when he spoke to her in Dwarven. Vladimir preferred speaking Dwarven above having a dagger planted in his back, and as such learned quickly.

    Now, he didn't get to leave just like that, obviously. No, on the next surface raid, he'd go along "to prove his might". Obviously, the Matron did not like risking her most valuable warrior because despite his bluntness, Vladimir's endurance and skill with the greatsword and hand axes were not to be underestimated. And as such, Vladimir got his wish and was allowed to go forth and raid.

    Now, they were supposed to raid a Wood Elven village, but Vladimir was having none of this. As such, he and his two fellow males decided to kill of the remaining woman, and made haste towards the nearest Dwarven settlement. Now, this backfired spectacularly, as the woman was more capable than Vladimir had thought, and only after his comrades fell, was he finally able to "kill the damn bitch".

    After this, Vladimir wandered around for a few days, more or less towards the nearest Human settlement. This is where he met Grugnir. Grugnir was a Dwarven mercenary, who'd met with a few Drow Outcasts of the Good variety and as such, didn't attack Vladimir on sight.

    Grugnir told Vladimir about nearby cultists. They'd captured some of the townsfolk, and he'd like for them to be freed. After all, they owed him money. And because Vladimir abhorred slavery, he agreed. For a price, but not a terribly high one. After all, Vladimir needed to eat to.

    He also had a conversation with a priest of Pelor, asking the man to bless his mission to save those who'd been caught. The priest did so, and Vladimir converted to Pelor on the spot.

    Now, Vladimir had to rescue a bunch of wounded townsfolk, preferably without alerting roughly a hundred cultists. This was accomplished by killing a patrol group and beating up their officer. After hiding the bodies and washing out the robes, he entered the camp posing as an officer.

    This is where he met the PCs. Two of them had gotten captured, and were being kept in a different spot than the townsfolk. Vladimir convinced the two PCs (that had also infiltrated the camp, but were masquerading as common guards) through a combination of intimidation and more intimidation that they should look the other way for a while. The PCs agreed, as they'd wanted to free the townsfolk themselves. (also, Vladimir was surprisingly muscular despite being a drow. Eighteen Strength and Sixteen constitution can do that to a man).

    One of the PCs, however, used me as a distraction. He pointed out that someone had run off with the prisoners, and promptly freed his own friends and one of the plot-relevant NPCs. In the end, the PCs minus Vladimir had to face down two cultist patrols, and things were looking grim. However, Vladimir was nearby, and a well-placed Barbarian can soak up more damage than most walls. Rushing in and throwing one of the guard drakes off the nearby cliff cemented Vladimir as a crazy man in the eyes of the party, and they were not wrong.

    Vladimir introduced himself after the battle, in common with a heavy Russian accent. The mage and rogue were immediately distrustful, being High Elves and all, but he and the Halfling Bard pretty much immediately became fast friends. The Cleric did not give a single fuck so long as I didn't endanger the others.

    This lead to the next encounter, a battle with Mommy, Daddy and Little Jimmy Bugbear. Mommy and Daddy Bugbear were dispatched quickly, but the Halfling had the great idea of catching the younger bugbear to use him as a mount/pet.

    After fifteen rounds of bad rolls on my part, we finally convinced (read: wrestled into submission) the little bugbear enough to tie him up and take him with us. We fed him rather well, and I split the costs with our Bard. We decided on the name Albert, which is pronounced roughly the same as Owlbear. Har har, we were funny.

    Now, in our next mission, stealth was called for. Vladimir was not exceptional at this, and this caused us to end up being attacked by a frankly humongous amount of stirges (bloodsucking bats of the non-vampire variety). The Cleric and the High Elves blamed me, the Bard was knocked out, and Albert was munching happily on a dead Stirge he caught.

    In the next battle, we slaughtered kobolds, and encountered Troglodytes. That is to say, two of our party got surprised by Troglodytes while Vladimir, the Cleric (more commonly known as the only part of the party that could take more than a single hit from the average kobold) were taking a small rest, and the mage was studying a book he found somewhere.

    Vladimir once again proved his worth, by being knocked out several times (thanks, Cleric). Seeing as there was a rather large group of kobolds approaching rather quickly, the party decided to hide me in the garbage heap we found the troglodytes in. Everyone else did the same, but unfortunately, I was the only one found. They forgot that Albert was in my backpack, and Albert became a quick snack for these kobolds and their guard drake.

    Now, after a short rest, the group decided to rescue me. With a few choice applications of spells, weapons and more weapons, the kobolds were disposed of, and Vladimir was freed.

    In the next fight, we taunted the boss (some blue half-dragon with a bad temper) to come up the stairs, which we had filled with ball bearings. We pushed him down the stairs several times, to the laughter of all (except Mr. blue).

    Eventually, my comrades had been knocked unconcious thanks to the lightning Mr. Blue had been spitting and the single add that was still alive, and Mr. Blue challenged Vladimir to single combat. Vladimir rolled two crits in a row, and rolled nearly maximum damage, which resulted in roughly 22 damage each hit. Mr. Blue went down like a bag of potatoes, and I finished off the add by anti-climatically throwing him down the stairs.

    Vladimir was then truly accepted as one of the party, and in the next fight, the Rogue died. Which was a shame, because he'd been carrying all the loot, and most of the money.

    Now, we ran away very quickly from that fight, as we were hopelessly outgunned, and ended up in a city of which I've forgotten the name. It had this magical sun/moon above it, keeping away the undead, thanks to Pelor. Vladimir was excited to hear this, and scurried off to the temple of Pelor.

    The party trashed the inn in the time Vladimir was away, and Vladimir befriended the commander of one of the local knightly orders. He didn't join up, but would take it under consideration.

    The party had met a Dragonborn Paladin (played by the rogue's player) who was not a very good person, being Lawful Evil and all. He was a follower of one of the gods of war or somesuch, and demanded he and Vladimir duel for the right to be in the party.

    Vladimir accepted, and was soundly defeated. He yielded, and got a mace to the face for his troubles. Normally, the barbarian would've just shrugged this off. 1d6+3 damage isn't that much, when halved. Unfortunately, we're talking about a Paladin here, and mister Paladin decided to add a nice dosage of Smite to it. Vladimir's skull cracked under the impact, and Vladimir was no more. (I actually crit-failed my saving throws twice, and the Cleric was slow on the uptake)

    The paladin ended up being tried and executed thanks to Vladimir's friendship with the local priests and a few of the more high-ranking officials (turns out that people tend to be religious when living in a city literally blessed by Pelor). In the future, Vladimir might be revived, but I'll never play him again.

    Rest in pizza, Vlad.
     
  20. Theogonia

    Theogonia Second Year

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    I'm actually going to start DMing 5e for a couple of friends. First time ever doing that, and damn, creating magic-wielders for the first time is a pain in the neck. But I hope it'll get better over time. Took me and my flatmate just short of 2 hours to build a tiefling warlock (Patron: Fiend) since we were both confused with which spells/cantrips count towards the total number of spells known and stuff. But that's a small price to pay, considering I have successfully talked him out of creating a grim-dark and oh-so-tragic drow-rouge.
    Luckily, the other 2 people decided on a dwarfen fighter and a halfling rouge, respectively, which took about a hour total to create. Now it's just 2-3 more people to go now...

    I'm thinking about having each of them traveling somewhere when a huge blizzard breaks out and the only shelter there is is a cavern because the standart m.o. of meeting the party (i.e. in an inn) kinda sucks. Any ideas what could wait for them in that cavern, and what kind of treasure I could place there? I'm just working through the DMG, so that should give me some inspiration to what may await the party there, but any input is greatly appreciated.

    Plus, has anyone ever played on Roll20.net + Skype? Any advice there on what kind of situations (except fights, of course) I should create maps for? And does anyone have a playlist of dungeoneering-songs like Matt Mercer uses in Critical Role? (if you haven't watched CR yet and want to have a life for the next few weeks, then don't watch it. 30+ episodes of 2-5 hours each)
     
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